Mayor Don Wesely today presented the Mayor’s Award of Excellence for October to Lincoln Police I
nvestigator Luke Wilke. The monthly award recognizes city employees who consistently provide
exemplary service and work that demonstrates personal commitment to the city. The award was presented
at the beginning of today’s City Council meeting.

Wilke was nominated in the category of loss prevention by Captain Gary Engel for his efforts to clear
a bank robbery at the Wells Fargo branch at 4600 North 27th Street. Wilke is a member of LPD’s board
certified team of crime scene technicians and also teaches fingerprinting. His crime scene
investigation resulted in 36 latent finger and palm prints. Because of rewards offered through
Crime Stoppers and the Nebraska Bankers Association, bank robberies generate a lot of information
from the community, but Engel said that information by itself does not clear cases.

"The successful investigator is able to sort through the bad information and build on the useful
information until he or she can make an arrest," wrote Engel in his nomination. "Luke methodically
pursued every investigative lead and suspect developed during his follow-up. He pursued one suspect
to Crete and then on to Salina, Kansas before eliminating him as a suspect."

A later Crime Stopper tip on a local man matched the general description of the robbery suspect. Wilke
found and interviewed the suspect, and he and his supervisor went to a bar frequented by the suspect,
where two people identified the suspect as the person in the bank surveillance photos. Wilke also found
two people who said the suspect had confided to them that he had committed the robbery. LPD’s
Identification Bureau positively identified a latent palm print Wilke recovered from the scene as
that of the suspect, and the robbery was cleared.

The other categories in which employees can be nominated are productivity, customer relations, safety and
valor. All city employees are eligible for the Mayor’s Award of Excellence except for elected officials
and some managers. Individuals or teams can be nominated by supervisors, peers, subordinates and the
general public.

Nomination forms are available from department heads, employee bulletin boards or the Personnel Department,
which oversees the awards program. All nominations are reviewed by the Mayor’s Award of Excellence Committee,
which includes a representative with each union and a non-union representative appointed by the Mayor. Award
winners receive a $100 U.S. savings bond, a day off with pay and a plaque. Monthly winners are eligible to
receive the annual award, which comes with a $500 U.S. savings bond, two days off with pay and a plaque.